Comparison

[martin henson]

Does anyone here use Colorbyte imageprint RIP, I purchased it a few years ago and never regretted its cost, I reckon its paid for its self and more due no paper or ink wastage whatsoever, plus I can print on most papers out there, if its not in the printers library for a specific paper they will make one for you ( the latest I had was made for Kozo paper) and add it for download to put into your profile list, there's quite a lot more to it than just hitting the print button however it is simple to use.

 

[Sal Santamaura]

By choosing the profile for that paper, you will be printing in RGB. Nothing wrong with this but it does consume more of the yellow ink than if you chose to use the ABW driver.

If one uses the ABW driver and refines it using its dialog box to ensure results just as neutral as those obtained in RGB + profile (simply selecting "Neutral" doesn't accomplish that), why wouldn't the same amount of each ink color be consumed? I'm suspicious of 'magic boxes' that claim they can get something for nothing.

 

[Ian-Barber]

If one uses the ABW driver and refines it using its dialog box to ensure results just as neutral as those obtained in RGB + profile (simply selecting "Neutral" doesn't accomplish that), why wouldn't the same amount of each ink color be consumed? I'm suspicious of 'magic boxes' that claim they can get something for nothing.

The algorithm used in the ABW driver is such that it uses the least amount of the coloured inks to produce a neutral output and increase longevity. Notice I said least amount. Even the ABW does use some yellow but not as much as you would do if using an RGB profile.

I'm suspicious of 'magic boxes' that claim they can get something for nothing.

There is some truth in this and it took many years for me to fully understand what this black box is doing. The "magic" if one can use this word came when the R3880 was introduced. Prior to this model, the ABW suffered extensively from a greenish tint which was brought upon by to much yellow ink being introduced.

One downside with the R3880 is the warmth of the black pigment in the black inks. Even when choosing neutral, on some paper bases, you can still inherit some slight warmth to the overall print, I noticed this more on Matt papers.

I managed to compensate for this by adding -10 on the vertical colour wheel in the ABW driver which brings the line more to a neutral position.

 

[Alan9940]

Hi Ian,

Please allow me to clarify that my "highly recommended" is based on results achieved. Yes, the video "tutorial" is a bit frustrating because he doesn't really explain things well (IMO) and he seems to have a lot of hardware problems. I will warn you ahead of time that it does require some concerted effort to begin using this tool. It seems to me that much confusion surrounds what hardware is used to measure the targets. If using an I1, for example, which I think is what he uses it's all more straight forward because you can simply follow along with what he does. If using a ColorMunki like I was, it took many e-mails exchanged and some additional documentation from him for me to understand how to use this device to create the curves. Additionally, on the Windows side there was no tool available to help smooth out the curves, if needed. The latest version (v3) now has curve smoothing built in which helps a lot.

Perhaps another comment I might offer for your consideration is that he doesn't seem to keep his buyers up-to-date when new versions are available. Personally, I don't appreciate that! For example, my frustration level finally got to the point that I wrote an e-mail explaining the difficulties I was having and that, without some ability to smooth the curves, that his product was basically useless to me; I asked if a refund was available. That same day, I received a reply with the new v3 attached which included the built in curve smoothing. Since I bought v1, I was left wondering why I hadn't heard about v2 and v3! Anyway, I'm nitpicking a bit...

Btw, if your on a Mac there is a tool for curve smoothing already available via the QTR website.

If you do decide to buy and you need help, I'll do what I can to help out.

 

[Alan9940]

Does anyone here use Colorbyte imageprint RIP, I purchased it a few years ago and never regretted its cost, I reckon its paid for its self and more due no paper or ink wastage whatsoever, plus I can print on most papers out there, if its not in the printers library for a specific paper they will make one for you ( the latest I had was made for Kozo paper) and add it for download to put into your profile list, there's quite a lot more to it than just hitting the print button however it is simple to use.

I used it many years ago and it's fine software with superb paper profiles. What I didn't like, and this could have changed by now, was the need to keep doing upgrades. It seemed like every couple of years I was forking out nearly the cost of the software, again, to keep it working. Then, if you happened to miss the deadline (which I did one year) you have to re-buy it! That whole part of the IP experience left a bad taste in my mouth...

 

[martin henson]

That’s changed, when a new version is released.the older version still keeps working, I use IP ver9, version 10 has the latest tweaks but not enough to pay the upgrade fee as the printout remains exactly the same using the same profiles.

Ever since I purchased imageprint printing is a pleasure to do, before that I must admit I did struggle with the whole consept of creating neutral black and white prints with my Epson 3800, now it’s easy on any paper I choose to print on.

 

[Alan9940]

Hi Martin,

I'm happy to hear that the licensing has apparently gotten more lenient over the years. If I printed a lot, I'd certainly look into buying it, again. I, also, tend to favor just a few different papers which I've now profiled for QTR. I bought IP back in my Epson 2200 days because getting acceptable B&W prints, even after much effort on my part using custom built inksets, QTR, and some software by Bowhaus called IJC/OPM, was near impossible to achieve. Back in the "good old days" IP made it easy peasy to get beautiful prints!